Height/length, weight, head circumference, chest circumference, sitting height and some other anthropometric data are the important growth indicators set forth in child growth standards published by the World Health Organization for evaluating the children's development and growth conditions, and need to be monitored regularly. Because children's growth status and physical indicators such as height, weight and the like are closely related to children' health, the above anthropometric data are the key indicators, and need to be monitored in the process of growing infants and young children.
From the early 20th century, contact measuring methods have been used for measurement in pediatrics, and never changed. Measuring apparatus improvements in pediatrics have also focused on contact measuring apparatuses. For example, portable weighing scales for measuring infants' weight, portable soft rulers for measuring infants' and children's height/length, and so on are the early measuring apparatus in pediatrics. With the development of medical apparatus, measuring apparatus in pediatrics gradually developed from a manual reading into automatically intelligent measurement; a plurality of independent measuring apparatus has gradually integrated and developed into intelligent apparatus which is able to measure weight, length, head circumference, and other indicators simultaneously. The intelligent medical measuring apparatus disclosed in Chinese Utility Model Patent No. ZL 200920084234.3 includes a weighing unit, a measuring unit for height/length and sitting height, a head circumference-measuring unit, a chest circumference-measuring unit, etc, wherein the weight sensor of the weighing unit is fixed to the base of the medical measuring apparatus, the other end of the weight sensor supports a measuring bed as a weighing table, and the weight sensor is coupled with a microprocessor through an A/D conversion circuit. The left end of the measuring bed is provided with a curved board for a head while the right end of the bed is provided with a curved board for feet. A curved board for feet is provided with an infrared receiver and a data reset contact. The both lateral sides of the bed are provided with railings with scales. The inner of the railings are provided with sliding rails, and the upper of the sliding rails are provided with a mobile data acquisition box used for acquiring data of lengths and sitting heights. The head circumference ruler in the head circumference measuring unit and the chest circumference ruler in the chest circumference measuring unit are individually disposed in the positions on the bed near the curved board for a head and slightly distant from the curved board for a head. The mobile data acquisition box for acquiring data of length and sitting height, head circumference ruler and chest circumference ruler are respectively coupled with the microprocessor through an interface circuit. The intelligent medical measuring apparatus can simultaneously measure various anthropometric data, such as an infant's head circumference, chest circumference, weight, height, sitting height, etc, but this type of apparatus is still a contact measuring apparatus, so that there are some mandatory requirements for the infant's body pose in the measuring process. For instance, infants or young children have to straighten the limbs in the measuring process, or a ruler has to physically contact infants or young children. However, since infants can not cooperate effectively. There is a great difficulty in the measuring process, and the accuracy of measurement results is affected.
Although a few simple non-contact measuring apparatuses have appeared in recent years, such apparatuses are mainly designed for adults, and do not apply to infants and young children suitably, especially to infants unable to stand. Therefore, infants can not collaborate effectively, making the measuring process laborious, and increasing the difficulty of measuring.